A DIRGE FOR WIMBLEDON
with apologies to Verlaine
It rains in my heart
As it rains on court.
What is it in this green
That gives me such spleen?
The damp flags swing loose
Like a corpse in a noose
While forlorn pigeons fly overhead
With all the flickering dread
Of newly dead souls looking
Back in anguish at the living.
ROME -- A 52-year-old man was shot dead in a piazza in Arzana, Sardinia, Carabinieri have said on Wednesday.
Vincenzo Beniamino Marongiu, 52, was shot in Piazza Roma at around 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning in Arzana in the Nuoro province of Sardinia. Marongiu, a previous offender, was under special surveillance at the time of his death.
ROME -- As part of the Italian government’s new 5.5 billion euro Mattei Plan, stakeholders convened at the Unione Montana Valsesia (UMV) on Monday with the goal of integrating young Nigerian migrants into Italian society.
ROME -- A boat carrying 47 migrants sank during the hours of Saturday night and Sunday morning in international waters, Italy’s Financial Police have said.
Among the 47 people on board, 44 were rescued by a nearby Tunisian fishing boat. The 44 people rescued were then transferred to the CP319 patrol boat, which then took the migrants to the island of Lampedusa.
Searches for the three missing people are now underway, led by a patrol boat from the Financial Police.
ROME -- Milan’s Malpensa airport is set to be renamed in honour of former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, the Minister of Transport Matteo Salvini, said.
The idea was proposed by Gabriele Albertini in 2023 following the death of the three-time prime minister and convicted felon. Albertini, the former mayor of Milan, originally suggested that the Linate airport should be named after Berlusconi.
LONDON -- When I started following the professional tennis tour, I set out with many misconceptions, none more ludicrous, I soon realized, than my assumption that since I was as passionately interested in travel as I was in tennis, the experience would prove to be doubly enjoyable. Although I knew I would spend much of each day watching matches and interviewing players, I imagined there would be ample opportunity for me—as well as the players—to visit famous museums and landmarks, lollygag in cafés, and sample the cuisine in celebrated restaurants.
LONDON -- One of the abiding clichés in tennis holds that players regard cash as a secondary, even a tertiary consideration. How many times have you heard a TV commentator remark when two millionaires meet in a final, “Prize money is the last thing on their minds”? Yet on the evidence of their behaviour, players keep big bucks very much in mind at all times. And why should it be otherwise? They’re independent contractors with short careers competing in a zero-sum enterprise.
LONDON -- Journalists are supposed to be neutral, objective. But to be honest we all have our favourites, our secret preferences. Mine is Frances Tiafoe. He’s still young but it seems a long time since he won the Orange Bowl at the age of 15. I‘ve been following his erratic progress ever since, carping and complaining when he has too often raised my hopes, then dashed them.
VATICAN CITY – Monsignor Carlo Maria Viganò, a vociferous conservative critic of Pope Francis, has been found guilty of schism by the Vatican, and has been excommunicated, according to the Holy See.
The decision was made on Thursday after the Congress of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith met to conclude the penal process of Viganò. The Dicastery then declared excommunication, which it said was communicated to Reverend Viganò on Friday.
